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Shared value in action

We have made shared value part of our business strategy because it makes good sense. Doing all we can to help create safer, stronger and more confident communities goes to the heart of what we do.

It all starts with safer: we believe we can all be safer; whether at work, home, or on the roads.

Safer at work

The health, safety and wellbeing of our people is paramount. Accidents are avoidable so we're working with our people, partners and customers to ensure they don't happen. And when things do go wrong, we're prioritising physical and emotional safety ensuring people have the tools they need to recover quickly.

This year we established new governance and systems to support the implementation of our strategy. In the Asia business we appointed Work Health and Safety Champions who drive the implementation of the strategy, and New Zealand already follows this model. We also implemented a new platform, DoneSafe, to manage health and safety risks.

We have several initiatives to reduce workplace risk. Our My Health Portal is now available to employees in Australia and New Zealand, and provides health management tools, research, local health events and discounts. A range of activities were initiated through My Health relating to managing stress, managing difficult conversations, driving safely and coping with change.

In New Zealand, training was provided to over 300 frontline employees to assist them with managing aggressive customers and third parties. Feedback received advised that the training was life changing as it provided the skills to have a difficult conversation and de-escalate aggression. This approach will be leveraged across Australia.

We continue to use lost-time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) as a performance measure, and achieved a 4% reduction in LTIFR in Australia and a 49% reduction in New Zealand over the year. Last year we advised we were changing our focus to leading indicators such as safety culture and hazard and incident reporting. While we haven’t progressed as far as we would like, we are examining how to implement leading measures next year.

We recognise many of our customers are impacted by mental health and domestic and family violence, and we are using insights from the Consumer Advisory Board to better understand how we can support vulnerable customers. We have established a dedicated working group and provided training to team leaders, claims assessors and frontline employees to help them identify and assist vulnerable customers.

Safer at home

Too often, homes are lost or damaged due to weather, crime and natural disasters. We’re helping our customers protect what they love: their home, family, community and livelihood.

This year we signed a ten-year collaborative partnership agreement with the Australian Red Cross to help communities build resilience. Our partnership, founded on a shared purpose, aims to help communities prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies. Research from our first joint initiative, which observed how people think, feel and act in emergencies, allowed us to co-design a digital emergency preparedness tool that will help people stay safe.

Extreme weather events lead to a large number of home claims. In partnership with the SES, our StormSafe campaign helps people minimise risks in their home when storms hit, reducing loss and claims. Approximately 90% of people who saw our joint storm preparedness campaign reported taking preventative action, paving the way for a reduction in claims costs and business revenue growth.

Meanwhile, more than 200,000 people learnt more about the common risks that threaten their homes by visiting our Safer Homes website. The website demonstrates some of the risks we consider when determining insurance premiums, and teaches people how to reduce these risks.

Over the last decade, safer vehicles contributed to the drop in road fatalities of 28% in Australia and 40% in New Zealand. But more must be done because in Australia, around 1,000 people die on our roads each year, and over 32,000 are seriously injured. Fewer collisions results in fewer claims, less trauma and safer communities.

When car theft peaked in the 1980s, pushing premiums to unaffordable levels, the IAG Research Centre was formed. Since then, the Centre has been quietly making your world a safer place. It created Australia’s first car security rating system, and shared that system with manufactures and consumers, halving the rate of cars being stolen.

The Centre delivered Australia’s first ‘blackspots’ program to save lives and prevent injuries and is also involved in trialling an app that uses IAG’s claims data to notify drivers of blackspots.

Autonomous (self-driving) vehicles have significant potential to enhance transport, mobility and road safety. We recently entered a 10-year partnership with the iMOVE Cooperative Research Centre and look forward to shaping the future of smart mobility. In partnership with the Australian and New Zealand Driverless Vehicle Initiative (ADVI), we are exploring the impacts of driverless vehicle technology to safety on our roads.

To help address the increased risk from distracted driving, we are piloting an app, Safer Journeys, which rewards good driving habits with non-insurance rewards. The app has been tested on our employees and is currently being trialled by IAG customers.

Safer leads to stronger: when people are safer they create businesses and communities that are more resilient and stronger.

Responsible business

We don’t define value solely in financial terms - it’s about always acting ethically too. We are committed to being as profitable and efficient as possible while having a positive impact on our customers, partners, shareholders, the community and our employees.

Diversity, inclusion and belonging will help us achieve our strategy and purpose. Diversity of thought opens our minds to new perspectives, while greater representation of the communities we serve supports our focus on customers. Inclusion helps us feel connected to one another, and provides a sense of belonging.

Our focus on diversity has three main areas: flexibility, equity and accessibility. Our commitment is supported by our Diversity Network Advisory which enables a more strategic approach to embedding diversity, and our Employee Network Resource Groups, which offer support around areas such as families, mental health, domestic & family violence and LGBTIQ+ issues.

We believe flexible work arrangements can boost performance and remove barriers to workforce participation, and recently piloted working-from-home in several Australian call centre environments. We now have more than 700 customer-facing employees working flexibly.

Our second Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) launched in 2015 is a ‘stretch’ RAP, meaning we set ‘stretch’ targets across the business. This year we appointed an Indigenous Engagement Partner to drive our commitment to achieve 1.5% Indigenous employees in our Australian workforce by 2018. To date, more than 40 Indigenous university students have done an internship at IAG through our CareerTrackers program and five have accepted permanent roles.

Responding to climate change is strongly aligned with IAG’s purpose to make your world a safer place.

Last year we re-affirmed our support of the Paris Agreement by refreshing our position on climate change, and we subsequently developed a new action plan for the business which will be released in the coming year.

We have been carbon neutral since 2012 by combining efficiency measures with the purchase of offsets. This year we met our 10% emissions reduction target, achieving a 28% reduction since we set our baseline in 2015, largely achieved through consolidation our of properties.

We have a long term challenge to work with customers and partners in our value chain to help minimise their environmental impacts and we will focus on this in our updated action plan

We constantly seek new ways to improve our supply chain. Nearly forty percent of our exclusive smash repairers are accredited by our EcoSmash environmental program, and EcoSmash is now included in all new partner agreements in NSW and the ACT. When we can, we choose Indigenous suppliers through Supply Nation and have this year met our RAP Commitment to increase the number of Indigenous suppliers used across IAG from 8 to 12.

Resilience to natural perils

While natural disasters can't be avoided, their impact can be mitigated and minimised. We're collaborating with communities, industries and government to drive global best practice in understanding and mitigating the impact of natural perils.

Australia is especially prone to natural disasters including floods, cyclones, storms and bushfires. As natural disasters increase in frequency and severity, so does the cost to lives, livelihoods and property. New Zealand, too, is very exposed to earthquakes, storms, tornadoes and floods - all events that have a huge impact on communities.

Through our leadership positions with the United Nations Environmental Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), we are working to understand the many issues related to climate change and natural disasters, and develop industry-wide solutions.

At state and local levels, we were actively involved in the 100 Resilient Cities initiative that set out to help cities around the world become more resilient to physical, social and economic challenges, with IAG representatives serving on Steering Committees and Working Groups in Christchurch, Wellington, Melbourne and Sydney.

Recently, we launched a national mapping tool – At What Cost? – using our knowledge to promote better understanding of the social and economic costs faced by communities impacted by natural perils. We know that better planning and investment in infrastructure can reduce risk exposure and build safer, more resilient communities.

In partnership with Suncorp and James Cook University (JCU) Cyclone Testing Centre, we are studying the impact of tropical cyclones on strata properties in North Queensland. By sharing our claims data with JCU we are providing designers, builders and insurers with a better understanding of what increases claims costs after cyclones, so we can help build resilience in affected communities.

Business resilience

Resilience isn’t just about how you survive the hard times, it’s also about how you thrive in the good times. Aside from working on our own resilience, we’re sharing strategies with other businesses so they’re well placed to thrive in good and bad times.

Resilient businesses power strong communities. This is particularly evident in rural and regional Australia where bad weather, natural disaster risks, fluctuating market forces and remoteness can make business hard to predict.

Last year we consulted extensively with rural customers to better understand how to support them. From that research we’re supporting more sustainable farming practices. Recently, CGU partnered with the remote medical specialist service, Best Doctors, to provide 59,000 CountryPak customers and 10,000 brokers with free access to some of the world’s best doctors.

We know our deep knowledge of risk can be used to craft other innovative services, as well as insurance. Our risk, resilience and recovery service provides expert advice to our business customers to help them assess risk, become more resilient and implement a recovery program if an adverse event occurs.

Safer & stronger leads to moreconfident: when people are protected by insurance and risk is managed well, it gives them the certainty, peace of mind and confidence to prosper.

Access & affordability solutions

We want to offer accessible and affordable insurance that minimises the disruption in people’s lives. When people are protected, with insurance covered and risk managed, they have the confidence and certainty to prosper.

IAG has always been there to help our customers recover from unexpected loss, as well as manage and reduce risk before disaster strikes. However, we also have the scale and influence to help resolve social issues such as non-insurance and under-insurance.

One in 20 Australian homes is not insured and up to 30,000 home owners fail to renew every year. If disaster strikes and there is no insurance, there is a flow-on impact to communities and broader social services.

In 2015 we launched Insurance 4 That to respond to the needs of typically uninsured Australians. This accessible, low-cost insurance product allows people to insure single items and may help groups such as retirees, single parent households and students protect what matters most to them.

We're piloting virtual reality technology to educate people about hazards in the home and the consequences of not being insured or being underinsured. Around 97% of those who have tried the pilot said they were more likely to spot hazards in their home and 56% said they’re more likely to review their current insurance cover.

Meanwhile, three of our Asian joint ventures - SBI General in India, AAA Assurance in Vietnam and Safety in Thailand – are offering microinsurance products such as accident, home fire protection or motorbike theft with premiums at less than A$5.

Social resilience

Connected communities are where good things begin. We’re working to find better ways to foster community connection and resilience and, in turn, encourage prosperity.

Community resilience is a big focus for global and local disaster management. We know that connected communities with engaged residents better prepare for, and recover from, adverse events.

IAG is working with selected communities affected by disaster to rebuild and improve their resilience. In Victoria, we’re working on two initiatives with communities in the Murrindindi Shire devastated by the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. The first is centred on children, the second on a local resilience network aiming to help confidence flourish in the community.

IAG is also working to better meet the needs of the under-serviced insurance market of Indigenous Australians through our Indigenous insurance research project.

Our partnership with Jawun has already facilitated secondments for 21 IAG employees in Indigenous organisations. Through their Jawun placements, our people contribute their expertise in Indigenous-led projects to build organisational capacity and make the Indigenous communities we work with more resilient and prosperous.